The Trophy Wives Club

by Kristin Billerbeck

  I scan it quickly, my eyes widening in disbelief. “The Trophy Wives Club?”

  “Forget the name, they mean it a different way. They’re not trying to be offensive. It’s a Bible study group in my church. A few women who have walked in your shoes, and I thought maybe you could use their support. They gave me that flyer in case they might be able to help someone else.”

  “How many people have you given this to?”

  “You’re the first one.”

  “I’m not a trophy wife.” I feel the fight go out of me, and my shoulders sag. “Or at least, I wasn’t a trophy wife.” But yeah, I was. He was twenty years older, paid me to step in line, and trained me like a chorus girl. That’s pretty much a trophy wife by most people’s standards.

  He shrugs. “I didn’t mean to imply anything, just thought you might need the support. I know sometimes it can be hard after your friends…” He pauses. “After they move on.”

  “My friends aren’t moving on just because I get divorced.” Well, Anna seemed to move on today, but I don’t think I ever really liked her anyway. Now that I’m allowing myself to have opinions again, there really wasn’t much to like. Shallow and rude aren’t exactly qualities one looks for in a friend.

  “I’m sorry about this, Haley. If it means anything to you, I’m sorry.”

  I refuse to cry in front of Hamilton Lowe. I crumple the paper and stuff it in my purse. “Send the big check to my mother’s. We’ll worry about next month, next month.” I stride toward the open door, past Miss Linen and to the elevator. It dawns on me that this is really happening. I have nowhere to go. No errand to run, no fund-raising fashion show to model for. My life is a blank slate, and I should be happy about that.

  “Haley!”

  I swing around to see Hamilton heading toward the elevator with a piece of paper in hand. A soft bing beckons me, and I step onto the elevator. Hamilton presses his hand against the elevator door. “There’s one more document I need you to sign. Can you come back in my office?”

  “Just give it to me, I’ll sign it here.”

  “I think it’s best if you come back, it’s a private matter.”

  I step out of the elevator. “Just give it to me. It’s not like I have any dignity left.”

  I swipe the piece of paper and my hand starts to tremble. “Further Claims. No further claims may be made against this estate. By signing here, Haley Adams Cutler agrees she holds no interest in or…”

  “I’m not signing this.”

  “Are you saying there may be further claims?” Hamilton probes.

  “I’m saying I won’t sign this.” I look up at him and shake my head. “I can’t make things perfect for Jay. Let him have a little insecurity. They say it’s good for building character.” I step onto the elevator. As the doors shut, I feel my muscles collapse, and I lean heavily on the railings. Jay’s rejection of me is now complete. Mine is just beginning, starting with dropping the car off and hoping for a decent payout.

  Chapter 3

  Arriving in San Francisco two days later doesn’t exactly bring the hometown warmth I’d hoped. I look back at the plane, wondering what lies ahead. My mother couldn’t pick me up at the airport, and, naturally, this brings up memories of standing alone in front of the school with the sinking feeling she’d forgotten me again. There’s something terribly tragic about a mother who forgets her child. Well, perhaps tragic is too strong a word, but if you’re below your mother’s radar, it hardly helps issues. All I’m saying.

  Bless my mother’s heart, she is as sweet as pie, gentle as a kitten, but she’s the sort, that if her head wasn’t attached…let’s just say she’d be only slightly handicapped that day.

  I haven’t been back home in two years, and I’m sort of thinking it’s her job to pick me up at the airport, but one can’t be disappointed if they have no expectations. She probably would have forgotten me anyway, so it’s just as well. I sold the Porsche to a local dealer. He’s going to find me a used Mini Cooper. I’ve decided I’m not the Prius type. I saw one before I left that said, “Your SUV sucks, My hybrid sips.” I thought, yeah, that’s not me. I don’t want to be identified with the obnoxious, save-the-earth types. Sad, but true. I’ll stay off private jets and recycle instead.

  I’m homeless. Carless. And I’m relationshipless. I’m alone. What an odd feeling. I want to ask Jay what he thinks, but that’s the point, isn’t it? I’m single now. I don’t get—strike that—have to ask anyone.

  Angry whispers smack my ears. There’s someone else, I hear them taunt. Shame covers me like molasses when I think about my husband and another woman. Wasn’t it bad enough he didn’t love me? Why’d he have to wait until there was someone else?

  And then after I relive the shame, it’s as if I’m flying, free from that burden. The puddle of molasses left for someone else to clean up. Someone else has to try to please him, the happy voices say. Still, I’m left to wonder about my future. I thought I’d have children by now. Can I have children? Maybe I’m infertile. After all, I’m twenty-eight and in eight years of marriage. Nothing. Those were my prime years, and if nothing happened, well…

  The fact is, I’d be attached to Jay forever if there were a child involved. There was no manner for this to end well. Jay didn’t want what I wanted. He only wanted the illusion of marriage. My body soars a little higher, farther from the sticky mess behind me. Not really, but I feel better for the moment, and it takes my mind off the fact that no one picked me up at the airport.

  After a harrowing taxi ride from SFO, I let myself into my childhood home. There should be some childhood memories stirring, but, really, I just feel bad my parents never water their lawn. Their poor neighbors. The house is mostly surrounded by juniper bushes, which are the nastiest smelling and most painful of foliage to get thrown into as a child. (I had a brother, did I mention that?)

  As I push the door in with my suitcase, I hear the fridge close.

  “What are you doing here?” My brother Mike, a live version of Shaggy, Scooby Doo’s friend, comes out of the kitchen with a hot dog in his hand. No bun, no condiments, just the hot dog. He bites off the end and pushes it toward me. “Want some?”

  “No.” I grimace. “And eww.”

  He shrugs. “Too good for hot dogs now? Rich people don’t eat hot dogs?”

  “No, I just don’t like to share meat, all right? Can’t you get a napkin? A plate maybe?”

  “No, Martha Stewart, I can’t. Mom is at Grandma’s. She know you’re coming?”

  “It’s been two years since I’ve been here!”

  “Yeah, so? You think we should all bow or throw out the red carpet or something.”

  “Mom knows,” I say, walking toward my room and halt in the doorway. The room now boasts a couch and a giant-screen TV. It’s way too big for the area, like being in the front row at a movie theater. “Where’s my bed?”

  “Isn’t it at your house?” Mike asks.

  “Not anymore. Didn’t Mom tell you Jay left me? Or I guess I should say he left me at the doorstep because he didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Harsh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was a wuss, anyhow. He probably fell in love, and now that you’re gone, he’ll see it was just his reflection in the mirror.” Mike laughs and takes another bite of his hot dog. “What kind of guy carries a designer briefcase?” Mike shakes his head. “On his honeymoon!”

  “It’s an L.A. thing.”

  “You know who you should date?” he says, wagging the hot dog for emphasis.

  “I’m not dating anyone, Mike. I’m going to get a job. I’m embarking on a new career.”

  “At the Gap?”

  I sigh. “Maybe. What are you doing here anyway?”

  “I live here.”

  I raise my brows. “At Mom’s house? Since when?”

  “Since I got laid off from Best Buy. You know, I help out and stuff.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Taking the garbage out. I take Mom
’s car to get the oil changed, that kind of thing. Mom’s not as young as she used to be.”

  I’ll let that slide. The idea of my mother infirm is a bit ridiculous, since she’ll have energy to control everyone’s life from her deathbed. Perhaps, she’s slightly codependent on her aging son needing her, but that’s another issue altogether. “Are you working?” I ask him.

  “What are you, the unemployment office? I just told you, I run errands for Mom.”

  “I’m just asking.” I shrug.

  “Well, don’t. You don’t come around here enough to ask questions, and if you’re staying, it’s not like you’re any better than me, all right?”

  He’s got a point. “I was just asking.”

  “Get off your high horse, Haley, you’re not perfect anymore. Mom’s got your bed in her sewing room.” He thrusts his chin toward the hallway. “She’ll be home soon. Grandma’s rest home was having a craft fair, so she had to stake out the competition. Other grannies with dueling needles, you know?”

  I hesitate outside Mike’s room, which hasn’t changed a bit. He’s got posters of bikini-clad Jessica Alba and old Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendars lining the walls, even a Denise Richards on his ceiling. I roll my eyes. Mike is the reason Jay Cutler will always have a job. If men with seventeen-year-old mentalities didn’t exist, Hollywood would be out of business, and judging by my brother, they’re not going anywhere. They’re playing video games at their mamas’ houses as we speak.

  This is my older brother by the way. He’s thirty, in fact. He just plays a seventeen-year-old in real life. He’s home flailing a hot dog around and giving me life advice.

  I toss my bag on the twin bed in my mother’s sewing room. She has it all daintily set up in a peach polyester quilted bedspread with coordinating colored lace pillows. “It looks like Princess Belle threw up in here.” But I’m not exactly in a position to be selective, am I?

  I hear the garage door rumble up and ready myself to meet my mother. I sit on my bed and practice smiling. Too fake. I try it without teeth. “Hi, Mom!” I say aloud. Too enthusiastic. I’ll wing it.

  Mom has teddy bears all around the room, staring ominously straight ahead. It’s like being in one of those rooms with the paintings, whose eyes follow you. People buy this stuff. Teddy bears made out of whatever sale fabric she could find at Wal Mart, quilts from old clothes at the Goodwill, stuffed monkeys from old gym socks. She was an environmentalist before it was cool. And say what you will about Hollywood and its recycled glass countertops, you still have to get rid of an old countertop. My mom’s got them on landfill material because she has her original orange laminate countertop to prove it.

  I open the dresser to unpack, but it’s filled with quilts she’s readying for the show, so I sit back down on the bed and wait.

  “She here, already?” I hear my mom ask Mike.

  “Your sewing room, already judging me,” Mike shouts over a video game where he’s blowing up various tanks or learning to steal cars and shoot cops.

  “Darn it, I thought I would be here! Now Michael, Haley’s just been traumatized. Be kind to your sister. We’re her source of strength right now.”

  God help me.

  I stand up and brush my jeans, trying to slow my breathing. “Hi, Mom,” I say as she enters the doorway. Good. That was good. But it’s no use; at the sight of her I start crying. She bustles toward me and envelops me in a tight hug and I fall into it like a little girl socked on the playground.

  “There. There. It’s all right, Haley. It will be all right.”

  I nod against her shoulder.

  She steps back and clasps my arms. “Have you two seen a counselor to work through this?”

  “Mom, I’m pretty sure he’s with someone else. I don’t know how you counsel through that. I think it’s pretty much a given that it’s over.” Call me naïve, but when a man is willing to hire lawyers to be away from you, I’m thinking that’s more than a subtle hint.

  “You never know, Selma Hampton and her husband were both about to marry other people, then”—she claps her hand—“God took over and repaired their hearts. Never underestimate what God can do.”

  “I don’t underestimate God, Mom, but I think you’re vastly overestimating Jay.”

  “Maybe he didn’t sow enough wild oats before you got married, and he’s going to have his midlife crisis. Did you–” She pauses. “Did you push him into marriage?

  “He was almost forty when we got married, rich and living in Hollywood. If he sowed anything else…well never mind. He was Prince Charles for the greater L.A. basin and”—I roll my eyes—“I thought he was a catch.”

  “Well, so did Princess Diana, dear. You’re in good company. I have to admit, I’m glad you’re telling me this, it makes me feel better about what I did today.” She hops onto the bed and puts her hands in her lap. “I just had a feeling, and I acted on it.”

  Uh-oh. “What did you do today, Mom?”

  “Of all things, I ran into Gavin at the gas station, and I told him you were back.”

  “Would that be the gas station by his shop? And by any chance did you happen to go into the shop?”

  She looks down at her Lady Macbeth hands, then looks away from me. “And I relayed the unfortunate circumstances of your return.”

  “Of course you did. Nothing like letting my high school boyfriend know I’m still a loser.”

  “Now, Haley, don’t say it like that. I thought he might cheer you up. He always was such a nice boy.” Unspoken: You should have married him like I told you to.

  “Cheer me up? What does that mean?” I ask fearfully.

  “I invited him to join us for dinner. He’s not married yet, you know. I know it’s not appropriate for you to date yet, but I thought getting reacquainted wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Peachy.” I sigh.

  “You’re mad at me.”

  “No, Mom, it was sweet of you to think of me, thank you.” I pat her hands. “But your hopes for me and happily-ever-after are not meant to be. The divorce isn’t final. Whatever Jay has done to me, I respect those vows.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve been living in that fairy-tale land too long. I want to be a grandmother, and in case you haven’t noticed, your brother Mike isn’t exactly speeding toward the altar unless it’s a computerized car that will take him. You’re my best chance, Haley.”

  “Then I would go out and buy a lottery ticket, Mom, because you’ll have better luck with that. The odds have got to be better.”

  She pats my leg, “I have to go get the roast in. Gavin always liked my roasts. The Golden Globes are on television tonight. I thought we might watch them together. Maybe you can tell us if you know anyone famous on TV.”

  I nod. “Sure, Mom. Can you call Gavin and cancel though? I don’t feel right about that even if Jay is done with me.”

  “It’s just dinner with the family, Haley. It will cheer you up and be like old times. When you used to smile. Why don’t you change your clothes, darling?”

  I glance down at my jeans and blazer. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Well, you haven’t seen Gavin in a long time.” She shrugs and flashes her eyes. “Don’t you make some sort of effort?”

  Subtle as a linebacker. “No, Mom. I really don’t—” I shake my head, not that it matters, she’s already taken care of everything. I notice where my uncanny ability at not having an opinion started. Then I remember Jay’s many tactics. I decide to take a page from his playbook. “Do you really think that’s appropriate, Mom? For a married woman? Would the ladies at church approve?”

  She has a momentary expression of terror. “I didn’t think of it that way.” My mom, God bless her, believes the key to happiness is marriage, and I’m so thrilled that for her, it has been. For me, it’s been the doorway to a nightmare, and I don’t ever want to see that threshold again. I tried. What I hate most is that I sound just like Hamilton Lowe. Maybe I should study law and become his female equivalent.

  �
��We don’t want to get the tongues wagging, do we? I’ve only been out of my house for two months. Let’s finish it appropriately.”

  “All right, dear. I’ll back off if it makes you uncomfortable, but you and Gavin have always been friends, since you were toddlers, in fact, so there’s no reason he can’t come and cheer you up and have dinner.” She crosses her arms and her claws come out. “Besides, who says he’s panting to be around you?”

  “No one, Mom. Just so you know, I’m not one of those women who pines after the one who got away. Instead, I sort of wish more than one had got away.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You sound like a bitter, old spinster.”

  “I am a bitter, old spinster. Okay, maybe I’m not that old. I just got married first, so I get off on a technicality, but I’m a spinster just the same.”

  “Did I say anything about marriage with Gavin? Get changed. I’m still going to have him over, and it just makes a man feel nice when you take time to look beautiful for him. It makes him feel virile.”

  “Ew, Mom. It’s not my job to make a man feel virile, all right? I’m embarking on a divorce, that doesn’t exactly make me desirable if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Making a man feel virile is important. Your father and I—”

  “No!” I shout, as I stick my fingers in my ear and start singing until she leaves the room. I shudder as I close the door. “Ick. Will my mother ever get a filter?”

  “I heard that!” she yells through the door. I let my forehead pound on the door.

  I brush a little powder over my face and climb into sweats. Not yoga pants, but sloppy, holey UCLA sweats. Firstly, because I can and secondly, because I am not letting Gavin think I took any effort.

  You never do forget your first love. Oh, you may try, but those first sloppy kisses, the rules your father sets for you, the outfits you wore, your hairstyle at the prom, they never fully evaporate because the emotions are so new, so full of hope. Somewhere inside of us all, there’s that innocence that we wish we’d appreciated more when we had hold of its power. Okay, a little lip gloss won’t hurt.